


Lucky Lazarus

by Gigi_Sinclair



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Frankenstein (Mary Shelley), M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-24 06:01:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21094580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gigi_Sinclair/pseuds/Gigi_Sinclair
Summary: I was working in the lab, late one night...Written for the Terror Halloween Fest, Day One: It's Alive





	Lucky Lazarus

**Author's Note:**

> Now with [ amazing fic-inspired art by oochika](https://oochilka.tumblr.com/post/190505250064/a-sort-of-gothic-professor-and-apprentice-au) and [a cool moodboard by empirics](https://empirics.tumblr.com/post/617778324723367936/endless-moodboards-for-my-favourite-fics-lucky).

Dr. Crozier says it's a Navy man this time, drowned but retrieved before the water could put too much bloat in the body. 

It's better than their usual cadavers, normally suicide victims damaged by bullets or knives, or rife with poison. Far better than the stinking half-decomposed piles of flesh sometimes brought in by the grave robbers. This man looks almost living already. 

He's well-built, muscular veering to stocky. His chest is thickly furred, just the sort of thing Thomas would like to run his hands through, or feel pressed against his sweat-dampened back. The man's whiskers are long but neatly trimmed, and the hair on his head, like that on his body, is dark and full. Thomas believes he could be a Naval officer. He can picture him on the deck of some ship, telescope or compass in hand, calling out orders to a seaman high up in the rigging. Thomas doesn't know much about the Navy. Perhaps that's a romantic image. Perhaps this man was more like the popular view of sailors: all “beer, bum and bacca”, lashing his subordinates with the cat-o'nine-tails when he wasn't buggering them senseless. This last thought puts a little shiver down Thomas' spine. Crozier looks at him as Thomas hands over the electrodes. 

“It's a little cold in here,” Thomas says. 

“Preservation of the corpse,” Crozier replies. “Ready to take notations?” 

“Yes, sir.” Notebook in hand, Thomas goes over to the machine. 

“On my mark.” 

They've done this dozens of times before, but every time, Thomas feels a bubble of excitement, a thought that this time, it just might work. 

“Ready,” Crozier says, and Thomas grips his pencil, ready to make history. 

Crozier pulls the lever beside the repurposed hospital bed where the cadaver lies. Electricity crackles and arcs. The sailor's body convulses, rigid as stone. The arrows on all of the dials swing to the far right, as they always do. Then, as always, everything stops. The arrows return to their neutral positions. The body is as still as the grave, and Thomas' bubble is popped, again. 

“Damn.” Crozier shakes his head. “I really thought we had it.” 

“Next time,” Thomas assures him, as he always does. “I can feel it.”

“Unfortunately, I cannot win the approval of the Royal Society based on your feelings, Mr. Jopson.” The doctor's tone is harsh, but Thomas knows better than to take it personally. This, the idea that a body can be imbued with life after death, that medical science has surpassed, in this advanced year of 1878, God Himself, is Crozier's crusade. Thomas has been on it with him for nearly a decade, but it is Crozier's life's work. 

Crozier sighs. “I apologize. There is no call for me to vent my frustrations on you. Particularly not when you have been so faithful to me.” 

“You are brilliant, sir.” Thomas is as much convinced of it now as he was when they met. Dr. Crozier was studying under Dr. Ross at King's College, Cambridge, then, and Thomas was a porter. Crozier saw something in Thomas nobody else did, an intelligence and an aptitude unnoticed by everyone to whom Thomas was only the man who sorted their post and brewed their tea. “I truly believe you are close.” 

“Close. Well, tonight, dear boy, a bottle of scotch and I are going to get very close indeed. Clean this up, would you? Hickey and Tozer will collect the body in the morning.” He looks at the Navy man on the table. “Shame. That really was a very good one.” 

It is. Thomas tries not to imbue the cadavers with too much humanity. That way lies madness, but, as he cleans up the lab, pulling the metal pads off the man's chest, putting away the instruments, he finds himself again wondering about this man. This sailor. 

“I would have liked to meet you,” he says, aloud. “Preferably in a nice, cosy little molly house.” He smiles at the thought. “Oh, sir,” Thomas says, wiping a damp cloth across the corpse's face. He doesn't usually bother with that. Hickey and Tozer will, and do, take the bodies in any condition, but he wants to pay this man this respect. “I've never been with a Navy man before. You'll have to show me your quick firing cannon. I trust it doesn't fire _too_ quickly.” Thomas would never speak so outrageously to any man. His sexual experience is limited to rushed mutual frigging in dark alleys, with men he doesn't know and never sees again.

“A man can dream, can't he?” Thomas asks the cadaver. “I'll take silence as assent. Thank you, sir.” Thomas puts the cloth aside and looks at the man's face. He can't think what comes over him. The late hour, the imaginary flirtation, loneliness. Any or all of that. Whatever the reason, Thomas leans forward and kisses the body, pressing their mouths together and parting his lips a little as he pulls away. The man almost feels warm, but that's another flight of fancy. He's been dead for at least a day, and in this chill room for hours.

“Sleep well, sweet Officer.” Thomas murmurs. He feels himself flush with embarrassment, although there is nobody there to see. Roughly, he adds, “Hickey and Tozer will be grinding you up for cannery meat in the morning.”

The laboratory, a windowless cellar beneath Dr. Crozier's house in Greenhithe, is pitch dark when Thomas closes the door on it. Much too dark to see the cadaver's eyes snap open as the latch slides shut.

***

The day after a failed experiment, Crozier always stays abed until late afternoon. Thomas usually allows himself to lie in longer than normal, as well, but this morning, he is roused by a loud banging before the sun is up. 

Grumbling, Thomas dresses himself quickly, including his waistcoat and jacket. Hickey is discomfiting at the best of times, with his leering and his suggestive remarks. Thomas has no desire to go to the door anything less than fully clothed. 

Thomas doesn't know where Crozier met Hickey. He doesn't want to. Men who will provide and retrieve an endless stream of corpses are a rare commodity. So rare, Thomas made no comment when the consumption-riddled body of Hickey's first partner—a sallow, sullen man named Gibson—showed up on their experiment table, and the well-built, perpetually scowling Tozer replaced him as Hickey's right-hand man. 

“I'm coming!” Thomas calls, irritably, making his way downstairs as the banging continues. Unusually, Crozier employs no live-in housekeeper; it's simply too dangerous. Rather, a local woman comes in three days a week to clean and cook, under strict supervision and stricter instruction to never go into the cellar.

Dr. Crozier's big Newfoundland dog, Shelley, is waiting at bottom of the stairs, panting eagerly. Thomas gives her a distracted pat. He's about to fling open the front door and ask why in God's name Hickey's so blasted early today, when the banging starts again. It's not, he realizes, coming from the door at all. Rather, it's originating in the cellar. 

A slow chill slithers down Thomas' spine. _I should wake the doctor_, is his first thought. It's immediately chased away. Crozier will be hung over, at best. Still drunk, at worst. In either case, he will be unprepared to face whatever is down there.

And Thomas is no coward. He likes to think he's proven that over the years he's spent here, sometimes elbow-deep in dead bodies as he and the doctor try to solve the equation of life. 

Breathing deliberately, moving carefully, Thomas goes into the drawing room. There, he removes from the wall an ornamental sword, picked up on one of the doctor's research trips to the far east. It's sharp enough to draw a bead of blood from Thomas' fingertip when he pokes at the blade. Good enough, he decides. “Come on, Shelley." The dog wags her tail. Thomas grips the hilt of the sword with one hand, pulls the key to the cellar from its place on a string around his neck, descends the stairs and slowly, slowly, slips it into the lock. 

The door creaks as it swings open, into the pitch dark. The doctor has placed half a dozen gas lamps around the walls of the laboratory. Instead of having to light them individually, they are attached in sequence, all controlled by a single knob near the door. It's a genius idea, and Thomas has never been more grateful for it than he is now. Brandishing the sword, he turns the knob. 

The room that appears before him is exactly the room Thomas left. All the instruments are in place, all the equipment exactly where it lay the night before. Thomas' notebook is even in the same spot, his pencil beside it. The only difference, the only minute change of detail, is that where there was once a cadaver, there is now a man, sitting on the table looking bewildered. 

Thomas screams. Shelley runs in, barking excitedly, and licks the man. The corpse. The man.

“Please, don't worry.” The man holds up his hands. “I won't hurt you.” His accent is top-drawer, his voice deep. “Hello, old girl,” he adds, reaching down to tickle Shelley under the chin.

_He did it._ It's all Thomas can think. After so many years, so many failures and frustrations, Dr. Crozier has done what nobody thought he could. Thomas could burst with happiness, after he recovers from shock. 

“Might you put down the sword, sir?” The reanimated man asks, looking up. Thomas drops it. “Thank you. Would you possibly be able to tell me where I am?” 

“I should get the doctor.” He _has_ to get the doctor. No matter the state he's in, Crozier needs to see this. He needs to know what he's accomplished. 

“Doctor? This is a hospital, then?” The man casts his eyes about. Belatedly, Thomas remembers that the fellow is nude, sitting on a slab devoid of sheets, coverings, anything at all. Gooseflesh has risen on his arms—and that is in itself a fascinating development, Thomas' fingers itch to note it—and his nipples are peaked. Thomas is not so sure he wants to note that. 

“Here.” Thomas pulls off his own jacket. It will be small on the man, but it's something. He passes it over. Rather than put it on, the man modestly covers his groin. “I can get you some blankets. Something to wear. I'll do that. It's just...” It's just, Thomas can't believe what he's seeing, and he's worried that if he leaves now, it might disappear. “Do you remember anything?” 

“I was on my ship.” The man frowns, his heavy brows knitting together as he rubs Shelley's head. She responds with more licks. “Perhaps? I don't know what happened. I might have fallen overboard? I don't see how.” 

“Don't think too hard on it.” Thomas has no idea how sturdy this resurrection is. “Don't tax your brain.” There is, though, something he would dearly like to know. “Do you recall your name?” 

It's one thing they've never had. Apart from Hickey's friend Gibson, every one of the cadavers Crozier and Thomas have worked on has been anonymous. Better that way, Thomas always thought, but now he finds himself desperately wanting to know what this man is called. 

“Little,” he replies, easily. “Lieutenant Edward Little. And who might you be?” 

“Jopson,” he replies. “Thomas.” 

“Well, Mr. Jopson. I admit, I am not certain what these circumstances are, but I wish we were meeting under better ones.” It's so unexpectedly charming, Thomas is taken aback. _The kiss_, he remembers. _I kissed him._ Does Little remember that? Should Thomas ask him? If he doesn't, it would be foolish to mention it, but if he does...

“I must get the doctor.” He really ought to, yet Thomas' feet make no movement in that direction. They make no movement at all, until Little shivers again.

Before Dr. Crozier, Thomas' job, his life, centred on making others comfortable. That position is long gone, but the core of it remains, ingrained in Thomas. Maybe born into him. This is a room for corpses, cold and sterile. Whatever Little is, he's not a corpse anymore. 

“Come with me,” he says. The doctor may be angry about it, but Thomas cannot let this man suffer here. It's against his nature. “I'll get you into a proper bed.” 

As soon as Little tries to stand, his legs give out. “Damn.” 

Thomas is there at once, supporting Little with an arm around his waist. The jacket Thomas gave him, the one that had been protecting Little's modesty, slips to the ground. Thomas tries not to see that. 

“I was up earlier,” Little says. “Banging on the door.” 

“I heard you. Don't worry. You just need rest.” Thomas is not at all sure if that's true, but it sounds good. And Little seems to grow stronger as they move. Thomas helps him up the stairs, but by the time they reach the guest room, he is very nearly walking on his own. 

“This doesn't seem like a hospital,” Little says, looking around the bedroom. Shelley has already leapt onto the bed, making herself comfortable. 

Thomas hesitates. He shouldn't be the one to tell him. He should leave that to Dr. Crozier. Saying nothing, Thomas helps Little into bed, drawing the blankets and the counterpane over top of him. 

“I'll find you some pyjamas.” The lieutenant and the doctor must be nearly of a size. Closer than he and Thomas, in any case. 

“How long am I going to be here?” Little asks. His voice is slurring. When Thomas looks over, he sees the lieutenant's eyes sliding shut. 

“I don't know,” Thomas replies. The lieutenant is already asleep. 

At least, Thomas hopes he's only asleep. He rests his head on Little's chest, above the raw red marks where the conductor pads were attached to his skin. That heart is beating now, thumping as steadily and as lustily as any living man's. _Amazing_, Thomas thinks. All of it. Amazing. 

He tucks in the sides of Little's sheets, making him as comfortable as he can. As he wonders whether Little might like a cup of tea when he wakes—whether eating and drinking is even a possibility for him—there's a knock. This time, it really is from the front door. 

“Let me guess,” the man on the other side says, as Thomas pulls it open. “The lazy bastard's still in bed.” 

“Mr. Blanky. We weren't...” _Expecting you_ goes unsaid, but then Mr. Blanky very rarely shows up announced. Grinning happily, Dr. Crozier's closest friend, a well-respected structural engineer himself, pushes past Thomas into the house, bringing with him a wave of pipe smoke so thick, Thomas coughs. 

“Too bad for him. I'm taking him out. The man needs to see the sun once in a while. He's not a bloody vampire.” 

“I'm not sure it's the best time...”

Blanky is already heading up the stairs, long strides taking them two at a time. “Have a day off, boy. I'm certain you've more than earned it.”

Mr. Blanky disapproves of Dr. Crozier's research. He's made no secret of it. 

“You're a fucking genius, man,” he said one night, as the three of them sat over drinks in Crozier's drawing room. “Imagine what you could accomplish if you let this fantasy go.” 

“Spoken like a small-minded engineer. What could be more important than this?” Crozier countered. “Victory over death. The greatest gift I could give man.” 

“Well, the greatest gift you could give this man is another drink,” had been Blanky's answer. They'd stayed away from the topic since then, as far as Thomas knows, but he can't tell Crozier about Lieutenant Little while Blanky is here. 

Predictably, Crozier is angry at being woken up. It's Blanky, rather than Thomas, who bears the brunt of his rage. _Get mine later_, Thomas thinks. And Crozier will be rightly furious when he learns Thomas is keeping a reanimated lieutenant from him, or more particularly from Mr. Blanky. Still, there's no choice. Not now. 

Inured to his swearing and personal insults, Blanky bundles Crozier down the stairs. 

“We need to get back to work this evening,” Crozier tells Thomas, as Blanky pushes him out the door. “I've had a new thought. What if we...”

“Jesus wept. Give the poor boy a rest,” Blanky interrupts. “You'll make him as bloody mad as you are. Won't he, Thomas?” 

Thomas doesn't reply. He can't. He's already being disloyal enough, hiding Crozier's success. 

As soon as the door slams shut, Thomas goes to check on what is now, at least for the moment, his responsibility. 

Lieutenant Little is still sleeping, Shelley lying atop his legs. Thomas again rests his head on Little's chest and feels the rise of his breaths, the beating of his heart. When Thomas sits up, he lets himself observe Little with his eyes, as well as his ears. 

The lieutenant is handsome. As handsome as any man Thomas has ever seen. Reaching out, Thomas gently pushes back Little's hair. 

He doesn't know why he kissed him. Thomas had never been inspired to do that to any corpse, and to very few living people. Now, the urge comes again. To press his mouth against Lieutenant Little's, to bury his hands in that wonderful hair. To see those eyes open, to lie down beside him. To give Little everything Thomas has longed to give a man for years and years, if only he could find the right man to receive it. Little feels like he could be the right man. 

_You're being stupid_, Thomas tells himself, abruptly standing up. _This isn't a man. It's Crozier's experiment._ Thomas should be worrying about keeping it alive, not concocting grandiose romantic fantasies.

Thomas retrieves his notebook from the cellar and checks on Little every quarter of an hour, making sure he's still breathing and his heart is still beating, taking precise notes on the rate and rhythms. Shelley, eventually, grows bored and whines for Thomas to let her outside. 

On the ninth check, as Thomas lies his ear against Little's breast a little longer than is scientifically necessary, he feels a hand stroke through his hair, down his neck and onto his shoulders. Thomas lifts his head and finds himself gazing into two beautiful, dark eyes. 

“You're awake,” Thomas states, then regrets it as possibly the most banal statement he could have made. 

“Yes.” 

As Thomas sits up, his usual errant lock falls over his forehead. Before he can brush it back, Little does it for him, reaching out with broad, blunt fingers and tucking the strand behind Thomas' ear. His hand stays there when it's done, resting on Thomas' cheek. “I remember you now.” 

Thomas blinks. “You...” 

“You kissed me.”

Thomas' face is burning. He knows it will be evident because it always is, a bright flush across his face. The lieutenant can probably feel the heat beneath his palm. “Well, I...I mean, I didn't...I'm sorry if...” 

“You saved me. Just as she said you would.” 

He doesn't ask who “she” might be. “That's not what happened. It was a scientific procedure.” Thomas wonders whether he ought to explain it. Whether Thomas himself would want to know if his dead body had been shocked back to life. 

“Edward,” Little says.

“I'm sorry?”

“Call me Edward.” His eyes are fixed on Thomas, staring at him as if he can see every one of Thomas' illicit, not to mention illegal, desires. “You are...” A sudden frown creases Edward's brow. “I can't think of the word.”

The flush intensifies. If, at this moment, Thomas was attached to the equipment downstairs, he knows every little arrow would be pointing at maximum. If the machine hadn't burst into flames. He can practically hear the electricity arcing over the bed. “Perhaps,” Thomas says, in a slow, low voice not at all like his own, “you could, um, you could show me.” 

A shadow of a smile crosses Edward's lips. It's brief, but it's there. Thomas sees it, as Edward pulls him onto the bed with wonderfully strong, steady arms. 

It's everything Thomas imagined, and then some. Edward is gentle when Thomas needs him to be, and rougher when Thomas wants that. It's like he can read Thomas' mind, or like they've been together for years. Despite his caring touch, and the bottle of lotion Sophia Cracroft fortuitously left the last time she visited, there is pain when Edward moves inside. He covers Thomas with kisses—to his cheeks, to his lips, to his throat—and any discomfort is inconsequential. Thomas wraps his legs around Edward, desperate to bring him even closer. 

“Lovely,” Edward murmurs, against Thomas' neck. He plants a kiss there, as well, sucking what Thomas hopes will be a lasting lovebite into his skin. “That's the word. You're lovely.” 

Thomas can't speak. He groans and spends, with Edward inside him and above him and all around him. Edward follows, coming inside Thomas, filling him with a warmth Thomas could gladly take over and over again. 

Afterwards, as they lie tangled together beneath the sheets, embarrassment once again rears its blushing head. 

Thomas hides his face in Edward's shoulder. “Please don't tell the doctor.” Thomas can't imagine Crozier's reaction if he learned Thomas had sex with his creation. Still, the entire time, Edward felt like a man. There was no hint of the artificial about him, no inkling he was anything other than a living human being. Even the seed, dripping down the inside of Thomas' thighs and into the sheets, seems just as real as any Thomas ever touched. 

Edward presses his lips to Thomas' forehead. “Who is the doctor?” 

Thomas tells him. 

When he finishes, there's a long pause. So long that Thomas begins to shift anxiously, but Edward holds him fast. “Allow me to tell you something, my love.” _My love._ Thomas practically swoons. “When I was seventeen, I sailed to the Caribbean. I can't remember where we stopped first, but the other midshipmen mocked me because I was too shy to talk to the women. The doxies.” 

“Shy?” Thomas wouldn't necessarily have termed him such. Not when he'd pulled Thomas into bed so deliciously decisively. 

Another kiss, this one to Thomas' cheek.. “Perhaps just improperly motivated. One of the women took pity on me. Invited me up to her room. I couldn't go through with it.” Edward sighs, clearly remembering a long ago humiliation. “She was very kind to me. Kinder than she had to be. She told me she could tell my fortune if I didn't want to fuck her. That way I'd get something for my money. I agreed, to try and save myself some embarrassment.” 

“What did she say?”

“A lot. I forget most of it. I didn't believe any of it. But one thing stuck in my mind.” Thomas is enthralled. “She said, 'Lucky Lazarus. Love will save your life.'”

Thomas swallows. It can't be true. Crozier did it. All of his years of calculations and experiments finally paid off, and he brought a man back from the dead. Science, not a Biblical story or a fairy tale. Thomas is no prince, and the Lieutenant no slumbering princess. Love had nothing to do with it. 

“I thought it was nonsense,” Edward says. His voice is soft. Beneath the sheets, he grasps Thomas' hand with his own, entwining their fingers. “Perhaps I was wrong.”

“Do you remember anything about being...” It seems rude, somehow, to say _dead._ “Away?” Thomas winces. That just sounds vague and cowardly. 

Edward shakes his head. “Not a thing. I half-wish I did.”

“Perhaps it's better not to.” 

“Perhaps.” Edward looks over. Just like that, Thomas is ready to do it all again. Before he can make any overtures in that direction, Edward says, “Do you think I might have some food? I'm quite famished.” 

“Of course.” The porter once more, Thomas puts his desire aside. “I'll find you something to eat.” 

Mrs. Finch, the housekeeper-cook, has left a plate of veal in tomato sauce. Thomas heats it up in the oven and serves it with a glass of wine. “Go carefully,” he tells Edward, who sits waiting in the dining room in Crozier's dressing gown. It seems like an unnecessary warning. Edward is strong. He made his way down here alone, with no support from Thomas, and his mind appears sharp. Thomas tries not to hover, going to let the dog in and filling her dish, but he can't stay away from Edward's side for long. And he's glad to see him eat slowly, with caution. Edward pauses between bites for a delicate sip of wine and to look expectantly at Thomas, as if asking his approval. Thomas gives it, in the form of encouraging smiles. 

Thomas could watch him eat all day. He could, he decides, watch Edward do anything, for any length of time. When another knock on the door comes, he considers ignoring it, but the knock repeats itself, more insistently, and with a sigh, Thomas goes to answer. 

“Afternoon, dear.” Hickey gives a lascivious smirk. Thomas would worry he can somehow tell what he and Edward have been up to, but this is Hickey's usual expression. Behind him, Tozer glowers as normal. “You got a package for us?” 

“No.” 

“No?”

“Terribly sorry. We don't require you to pick anything up today.” 

Hickey blinks. “Well, that's interesting. Isn't it, Sol?” “Sol” makes no comment. “'Cause for years now, we've been delivering for you, and we've picking up. And today, there's nothing? You sure about that?”

Thomas squares his shoulders. “Quite sure. Dr. Crozier has decided to...keep your last delivery a little longer. So sorry to have wasted your time.” He moves to shut the door, but Hickey blocks it with his foot. 

“Care to share why?” 

Thomas frowns. He really is an odious man. “No. Good afternoon.” He tries to push the door closed. Hickey's foot stays where it is. He's stronger than he looks. “If you'll excuse me, Mr. Hickey...”

“No.” Smoothly, Hickey opens the door fully and steps inside. Before Thomas can blink, Hickey's got him by the collar, up against the wall. Shelley, the great defender, comes in, barks ineffectually once, then wanders off. “What you perverted bastards playing at? Keeping a body? I told Crozier before, I don't give a fuck what you do with them, but the next day, they're mine.” 

“I know that voice.” 

Thomas turns. Edward, frowning in concentration, stands in the front hall. 

“Fuck,” opines the usually silent Tozer. 

Hickey drops Thomas. “And I know that one. Lieutenant. What a pleasure to see you again.”

“A surprise.” 

“Certainly. That as well. A very welcome one.” It doesn't look welcome. Thomas can see it in Hickey's eyes. He may be smiling as insincerely as ever, but he looks like he wants to flee. Thomas won't stand in his way. 

“'Give me a bob, I'll suck you in that alley.'” Whatever words Thomas expected to hear next, they weren't those. They sound particularly incongruous in Edward's deep, authoritative voice. “Was that not what you last said to me, Mr. Hickey?” Thomas moves to stand at Edward's side, resisting the urge to take his hand. 

Hickey shrugs. “Man's got to make a living somehow. Christ knows ferrying dead bodies ain't doing it.” 

“Bold thing to say to a stranger.” 

“You were hanging about the docks after dark. Only one type of man does that.” 

“A Naval officer.” 

“Only one type of Naval officer, then.” 

“I didn't fall overboard.” Edward speaks slowly, realization dawning in his eyes. “You did it. I refused you.” It's a small matter in the grand scheme of things, but Thomas is very happy to hear that. “Your friend there,” he points at Tozer, “punched me in the face and I fell off the dock.”

Hickey doesn't deny it. “My original offer's still on the table,” he says, instead. “You, too, Jopson. Do the pair of you for a shilling sixpence. Together or separately, up to you. Won't get a better offer on the docks.” 

“You murdered him?” Thomas can't believe it. He's always known Hickey as a scoundrel, and not the type of person you'd wish to encounter in a dark alleyway, but a murderer? 

Hickey laughs. “Come off it, my love.” When Edward said it, Thomas wanted to swoon. When Hickey says it, he feels nauseous. “You're a bit of raspberry jam, all right, but even you must have the brains to wonder where all them fucking bodies come from. How many suicides do you think there are around here?” 

Thomas hadn't wondered. He knew about the grave robbing, of course, but this suggestion, that people were being murdered for Crozier's experiments, is something else entirely. “Dr. Crozier will be very upset about this.” 

“Jesus fuck." Hickey rolls his eyes. "It's a good thing you're pretty. Crozier knows. He told me to do whatever it took to get him bodies.” 

“That doesn't mean murder.” Dr. Crozier understands the value of life more than anyone. He's dedicated his career to restoring it. The very idea of him taking it away, or approving of someone doing so, is so outlandish it's grotesque. 

“Listen, believe me, don't believe me, I don't give a fuck. There's a bigger surprise here than Dr. Crozier's fucking morals, isn't there, Lieutenant?” Feeling an immediate surge of protectiveness, Thomas inches even nearer to Edward. “The last time I saw you, sir, we were carting your dead body in here.” 

“I survived.” 

“Not possible.” 

“Clearly it is,” Thomas replies. He needs this man out of this house. “If you don't mind, Mr. Hickey, I would very much like you to leave.” 

“Oh, I'm not going anywhere. If Crozier's got some kind of potion that can bring a man back to life, then that's something I want to know about.” 

“That's something,” a familiar voice breaks in from the open doorway, “Crozier wants to know about, too.” 

Shelley comes running to her master, tail wagging excitedly.

Dr. Crozier is sober, or at least he appears so. That's not always a given when he's been out with Mr. Blanky. Mr. Blanky, who is looking about the assembled group with the expectant expression of somebody who knows he is about to hear a very good story indeed. 

A story nobody seems inclined to tell. Even Hickey, suddenly, is close-mouthed. Thomas has to speak first. He knows it. He glances at Edward, hoping to garner courage from the sight of him, and begins. “Dr. Crozier, I...”

This is as far as he gets before Edward collapses. 

“Jesus, Thomas. What in God's name is this?” Crozier is at Thomas' side in an instant. 

“He was awake this morning,” Thomas tells him, placing his head on Edward's chest. The beat is stuttering, arrhythmic. “His heartbeat's erratic now. It's changed.”

Crozier raises an eyebrow. He doesn't stop to rail at Thomas for not telling him sooner, but Thomas knows it will come. “What was his condition like earlier?”

“Good. Strong.” Thomas blushes despite himself. “Very strong.” 

“Let's get him back downstairs. Shock him again. We might be able to reset it, rather than having to start over from nothing.” 

It's a good idea. Dr. Crozier is the scientist, the expert, and a doctor besides. He knows best. Still. As Crozier goes to lift Edward, clearly expecting Thomas to help him, Thomas bends and kisses Edward's lips. 

Nothing happens. 

“What the devil are you doing?” Dr. Crozier asks. 

“Nothing. Sorry.” He drags Edward's warm weight upright.

“Can I do anything to help?” Hickey asks, sounding surprisingly sincere. 

“I'm not sure why you're even here, Mr. Hickey,” Crozier snaps.

Thomas has to ask. He doesn't want to know, but he has to ask. Whether Hickey was telling the truth. Whether Crozier really did know where the bodies came from. He doesn't have time to do any of that. Edward's arm tightens around his waist and the ragged gasp of a breath hits Thomas' ear. 

“Edward!” Thomas turns into his embrace. Edward wobbles a bit, but his arms go around Thomas, steadying himself.

“'Edward'?” Blanky repeats. “Seems like you and I have missed something interesting, Francis.” 

“Seems like we all have,” Hickey agrees. Thomas doesn't care. It's all background noise, inconsequential babble, as he holds Edward, on and on, without letting go. 

***

“It appears as though you and I can never be parted.” 

“I will attempt to contain my dismay.” Thomas grins into a kiss, and then another one, just because he can. 

There is no proof of anything, no reason to truly believe Thomas is the reason Edward is alive. Thomas has spent enough time with a scientist to know that. _But why_, Thomas thinks, _take the chance? _

“You say that now. Wait until you've spent a month with me. A year. Twenty.” 

“Forty,” Thomas counters. “Fifty. It all sounds wonderful to me.” 

The conversation, as expected, was awkward. Thomas brewed a pot of tea, just to be able to hide in the kitchen for a while with Shelley. Eventually, he was forced to emerge. 

“Mr. Jopson didn't know,” Hickey said. He and Tozer had taken up residence on one of the sofa, sitting so closely together their legs touched. It was sweet, in a way, Thomas supposed. A strange way, but he was in no position to cast stones at that glass house. “What I've done for you, doctor.” 

Crozier's face was grim. Even Blanky's joviality had waned, his mouth set in a hard line. 

“It's unforgivable,” Crozier said, after a long pause. “I have no defense. I will take full responsibility.”

Hickey snorts. “No, you fucking won't. We both know who'd go to the gallows, and it ain't you.” 

Crozier turned to Thomas. “I owe you an apology. I'm not who you thought I was. I'm not worthy of everything you've given me.” 

“You are, sir.” Despite all this, Thomas was positive of it. “You had your reasons...”

“My reasons excuse nothing. But Lieutenant Little is an incredible development. The murders must stop, yes, but the research must go on. I can't just...” 

“Your reason is James. Isn't it, Francis?” Blanky didn't pause for an answer. “You should have told me sooner. I should have understood sooner.”

“So you could say what? That I have to let him go? That because I...” Crozier's voice broke. “Because I can never have him back, I should stop searching for a way to bring back others?”

"Christ, Francis, this isn't what..."

“Dr. Crozier.” Thomas looked at the man with whom he'd spent the last ten years. The father he'd never had. “Francis. Who was he?” 

Crozier sighed. “The best man I ever knew.” 

“He died,” Blanky continued. “Twenty years ago. A hero, fighting for England.” He shook his head. “You have to stop, Francis. Now. For good. James wouldn't have wanted you to end up this way.” 

Love, then, had driven Crozier. Thomas wished he had known that. 

“You know nothing of what James would have wanted!” Crozier rubbed a hand over his face. Suddenly, he looked twenty years older. “Mr. Hickey, Mr. Tozer, I am prepared to give you a substantial sum of money, on the condition I never see you again.” 

It was Tozer, remarkably, who answered. “That'll do us fine.” 

“And me,” Edward put in. Thomas squeezed his leg. It was a rare man who got to face his murderer, after the murder. Edward was handling it with far more grace than Thomas expected he himself would manage. Especially if the murderer was Hickey.

“Thomas.” Crozier turned to him. “I will do what I can to help you secure a job in another laboratory, if that is what you wish.” 

It wasn't. Thomas didn't even have to think about it. “My place is here, with you.” 

“But I...”

He might have been disappointed, if he'd learned about everything earlier, but now, Thomas fancied he understood. He didn't know what losing Edward might drive him to do. He hoped he never had to find out. “As long as Edward stays with me.” 

“My dear boy,” he said, a slow smile creasing his face. “I wouldn't dream of parting you.” 

Thomas wouldn't dream it either. Here, in their bedroom, in their bed, in the house they share with Dr. Crozier, Thomas is the happiest he's ever been. 

“I sometimes...” Edward begins, then stops. 

“What?” 

“I sometimes wonder,” he goes on, “if I ought to have asked that prostitute for more details. Asked why I am so fortunate. Asked her to describe just who this love would be. But I don't think I would have believed it.” 

“Believed what she said?” 

“Believed that someone like you could love me.” 

“Darling.” Thomas' heart clenches, in a wonderful way. It does that a lot around Edward, he's finding. _As long as it keeps beating_, he decides. He has no desire to find out if their unique relationship works both ways. 

“I had a job,” Edward continues. “A position of power. I liked it.” It seems a non sequitur, until he goes on, “But I find myself utterly satisfied here with you.” 

“Perhaps death changes a man.” It's meant to be a lighthearted jest, but it sounds more serious than Thomas intended. 

“Perhaps,” Edward replies, “love does.” 

Thomas kisses him again for that. He has to. It's a wonderfully romantic sentiment, and in this case, very accurate. All Thomas' life, he has served, and been happy to. Never, though, as happy as he is serving this wonderful man, in this special way. Thomas doesn't understand it. He doesn't, he finds, have to. He was never a man of science, not the way the doctor is. 

He is, however, a man with a sense of humour. It's the reason, he sometimes thinks, that he's been able to retain his sanity this long. 

“Now, Lieutenant Little,” he murmurs, his lips against Edward's, “I have a problem, and I need your advice, as a sailor.”

“Yes?” Edward sounds wary. 

“I find myself quite out of beer and tobacco, and can't think of what else I could do with my time. Do you have any suggestions? As a sailor?”

Edward laughs, a loud, unexpected and adorable sound, and pulls Thomas beneath the sheets.

**Author's Note:**

> The Royal Navy didn't have a quick firing cannon until the 1890s. But Thomas doesn't know much about the Navy, OK? And the "beer, bum and bacca" thing was really something Victorians said about sailors.


End file.
